


lovecats

by brandywine421



Category: Daredevil (TV)
Genre: Friendship, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-15
Updated: 2020-01-15
Packaged: 2021-02-27 15:54:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,673
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22269736
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/brandywine421/pseuds/brandywine421
Summary: Written for this prompt:The Nelsons have an unused piano, Matt finds it while staying over for the holidays, can be set any time in their friendship, maybe bittersweet.
Relationships: Matt Murdock & Franklin "Foggy" Nelson
Comments: 4
Kudos: 87
Collections: DDE’s 2020 New Year’s Day Exchange





	lovecats

**Author's Note:**

  * For [DarthTofu](https://archiveofourown.org/users/DarthTofu/gifts).



> I was a pinch-hitter for this challenge when tapped, so I wrote this fic as a backup in case it was needed - but - the original gifter created a glorious piece of art for the same prompt that you can see over on the [tumblr](https://acesammy.tumblr.com/post/190221797430/oof-i-am-so-sorry-at-how-late-this-is-this-last) (I will link when I find it) so please give them all the ♥.
> 
> Written for this prompt: _The Nelsons have an unused piano, Matt finds it while staying over for the holidays, can be set any time in their friendship, maybe bittersweet._

_we missed you hissed the lovecats_

  
"We've got the guest room set up for you, Matt, we're not letting you get away with skipping another holiday after the way Foggy moped last year, and that girlfriend of his - "

Foggy opened his mouth to warn his mother not to start the insults before snacks had been served but Matt spoke up, setting his smile to 'charm'. "Marci is a gift, Anna, and we're lucky she's sticking around."

He and his mom both stared at Matt but his mom took the bait. "Wow, she must have laid you out already."

"So many times," Matt smiled but at least he didn't wink. "Still can't win an argument with that one, but Fogs can which is why she's not going anywhere."

When the hell had Matt talked to Marci?

His mother laughed though, more progress made with Matt's prodigal blessing than he'd ever managed to wrangle out of her. He didn't need his mother to be best friends with Marci - but sometimes he needed her to be nice. Was nice too much to ask?

"She broke his heart once, maybe one and a half times," Matt said, skimming his hand down the counter to mimic getting his bearings. "I've hurt him a lot more than that and you haven't chased me away with the broom yet."

"But you're family and it was a snow shovel not - hey, don't play your Jedi mind tricks on me," Foggy's mom protested, swatting at him.

"Snow shovel?" Foggy interrupted

"I tried to soften it up for her," Matt said helpfully, ducking another swat of her rag.

"She was tracking dirty snow all in the - " She cut herself off with a flush. "I said I was sorry and that was last year. It was difficult for everyone."

"Nice, turn it back on me - talk about Jedi mind tricks," Matt said.

"It's good to have you back, Matt."

"We're here early, just like you asked - what's the emergency?" Foggy asked before she tried to give Matt a prickly hug and take the mood back two steps.

She huffed, amused with that undertone of annoyance that could only mean one thing. "Theo, in his infinite wisdom, decided that since the Christmas stockings were in a box that he should put them with all the other boxes - and they're possibly in the storage unit in Florida."

"I said I was sorry!" Theo called from upstairs.

Foggy shrugged out of his jacket and accepted Matt's when he followed suit. "Don't know how much Matt can help - "

"Of course he can, Theo won't go in the storage room because of spiders and there are a lot of boxes - just shake them and see if they jingle," his mother said.

"I don't like spiders, why do I have to - " Foggy started but his mother swirled the washcloth and he let Matt steer him out of the kitchen to safety.

* * *

They jingled a few boxes in the overstuffed space of the old dining room. Foggy's family stopped using it over a decade ago when the family started having meals at the shop to save on double cleanup.

Matt was distracted, not by the forced social interactions with the Nelsons, but something else. The small space or the dust, or maybe just the silence.

They were friends again, partners again, but the scar tissue was still healing over.

"Do I need to know when you joined Team Marci?" Foggy asked when Matt shuffled his way into an open space, not completely overrun with cardboard yet.

"There aren't teams, but she mentioned your mom had been particularly passive-aggressive while I was - recovering," Matt hummed.

She hadn't mentioned it to Foggy, but perhaps he should have known. He wasn't necessarily tuned in on Marci while Matt was missing - fuck recovering - he had been missing.

"Her dad sent us season tickets to the Philharmonic last year, and Mom and Dad gave her candles - the good kind, don't get me wrong just - it flipped some kind of switch with Mom."

Matt shivered, steadying himself with a hand on their old piano.

"What's wrong?"

"I hate the symphony. All the instruments, all at once - makes me feel like I'm being ripped apart," Matt murmured.

Foggy glanced at him, wondering where the hell that confession was hiding. "Didn't know that."

He shrugged his bad shoulder, using the twinge of pain to center his words. "It's just a - thing that happens. Never really figured why Elektra thought she could shine me up like a rich boy."

"Why not, you swap out your masks like you're changing your boxers. Altar boy, street-fighting punk, helpless orphan - "

"Clueless law student?" Matt picked up, raising an eyebrow.

Foggy sighed. "That's not what I meant." He watched Matt slide his fingers down the dust cover, raising his fingers near his mouth to taste the air before swiping it from the piano and tossing it aside. 

He cleaned off the bench before Matt could cause another dust bomb, shifting the stack of scrapbooks and dented board game boxes.

"Thanks," Matt hummed, sitting down with a thump and scattering dust anyway. Foggy sneezed before he pushed back the failboard to reveal the keys. "How long's this been here?"

"Forever, Mom's Nana used to play it, but she passed before I was three. Moved it in here when Theo got old enough to climb on stuff," Foggy considered. "Think it still works?"

"It's a piano, it'll always work, just might not sound the best."

He waited but Matt stilled his fingers over the keys once he'd lightly dusted them off. "Did you forget how to - "

But Matt inclined his head toward the other room. "Your mother's carrying glasses - something fragile, I'm waiting for - okay, she put them down."

He'd never fully understand how Matt's senses worked but he would probably never stop trying. Matt straightened his back into a practiced posture and his curled his fingers before striking the keys in a familiar tune.

He didn't know if he was more impressed at Matt's skill with the piano or his ability to keep a straight face.

"Hey, is that Despacito?" Theo called from upstairs.

Foggy shoved him, both of them cracking up and breaking the tension that had drifted over them like the dust.

"Music rooms at school were always dulled for outside noise," Matt said. "Needed an excuse to get in the rooms at Columbia."

"Orchestra?"

Matt shook his head sharply.

Foggy moved to sit beside him on the bench, Matt had left enough space automatically and he hesitated at the idea that would ever change. "What's going on in that pretty, empty head of yours?"

Matt swallowed, wetting his lips in one of the first 'tells' Foggy learned. "It's stupid."

"Probably," Foggy said lightly, elbowing him. He tried to stretch the silence of the room and hear whatever Matt 'saw'. Theo's lazy footsteps upstairs, rarely in a hurry for anything that wasn't affecting his paycheck. His mother's Christmas soundtrack trilling happily along in the kitchen. He didn't hear his father, probably too far for his puny ears to pick up, or too quiet. His dad was great at staying out of the way when guests were around.

"I did all right at the chamber, could not handle the symphony," Matt said finally. "Stick took me, said picking out the different instruments was easy, wanted me to pick out which musician had curry for lunch, which chair had a short leg, which music folder was missing a page. What kind of wood the conducter's baton - "

Foggy squeezed his knee suddenly. Matt didn't flinch, didn't inhale, didn't move until he loosened his fingers.

Matt raised his hands back to the keys and pounded out the Imperial March but Foggy didn't think it was funny - Stick probably thought the Siths were top goals.

"Sorry," Matt smiled.

"He teach you piano, too?" Foggy dared to ask.

"No, Sister Ruth. Thought it would give me some structure, it was before Stick taught me how to get control of everything."

"Didn't take?" 

Matt leaned his head back slightly. "It affected me. I didn't figure out why until later. Acoustics, instrument tones, vocal ranges - all those things can be - overwhelming, even with a focus."

Foggy let out a silent whistle. "Yeah, I can see how going to hear a symphony could be - problematic."

Matt started playing a slow, melancholy song, a church song if Foggy wasn't mistaken. "Recordings don't give me the same reaction. I was trying to shake it in college, just in case - ended up taking naps under the piano more than suffering through the sensations."

Staying away from live music seemed like a safe enough fix to Foggy, but Matt played through the song with the uneven notes and heavy thumps of the pedals.

Foggy was focused on Matt's battered fingers moving effortlessly across the keys until a splash of red dropped to Matt's wrist.

"There it is - vibration's just - " Matt said, letting Foggy pull his hands away and taking the offered tissue to raise to his nose on his own.

"Hopefully that didn't happen when that old bastard took you," Foggy said.

Matt shook his head with a small smile. "So much worse. He had to tell everyone I had an allergic reaction so they wouldn't call an ambulance."

"Ouch," Foggy whispered.

He raised his hand to his sternum, still holding the tissue to his nose. "Cellos hit me here, oboe - in the right key - is like a punch in kidney. French horn makes my left leg go numb."

Foggy leaned his head on Matt's shoulder and after a moment, Matt relaxed and rested his head against his. "What about choirs? Do we need to hide you from carolers?" 

Matt smiled, not the self-deprecating one from a moment before. "Professional choirs - not a good idea, but carolers are fine. It's just a facet of my senses that I've never taken the time to explore."

"As your most trusted advisor, please don't," Foggy said, grinning when Matt let out a soft chuckle. Damn, he missed this asshole.

**Author's Note:**

> Title and lyric tag belong to 'The Cure'.


End file.
